Tonight We're All Still Young at Heart

Image from barringtonriversideretreate.com.au

Saturday morning I woke up with a headache so bad it made my eyes water! I had to suck it up though as we had a 2 and a half hour drive ahead of us to it out to Gloucester, where the Runner and the Smooth Talker were getting married. I was able to find some headache medicine right before we left and that seemed to knock the headache out pretty well.

It was a pretty drive and MOTH and I had fun in the car and talked about how it felt like road tripping in America. We were the first to arrive at the cabins we were all going to be staying at for the night and had our pick of the 4 so we chose the one with the best view of the river below. Not long after, our bunk mates The Farmer and Tinkerbell (who hates this pseudonym and whom I still need to think up another one for) arrived and after them came LC, Bob Marley, the Hairdresser, the Soccer Player, Croc, and the Teacher. All the boys hung out on the porch drinking beer and making a trip down to feel the water while us girls took over the main bedroom of our cabin and the Hairdresser very nicely did all of our hair for us. We then got dressed and started to head out for the ceremony. I started to feel a bit headachey again before we left, but figured it was just because I was a little overheated.

The ceremony was at a beautiful hill overlooking the whole valley and town of Gloucester. The Runner teared up as she walked down the aisle and I teared up with her. It was a short and simple ceremony, but by the time it was over, I was starting to feel really sick to my stomach so I told MOTH Dude I needed to go sit in the car in some air conditioning for awhile. Being a good guy, he left the after ceremony drinks, pictures, and canapes to check on me a few times. After a while, the air conditioning just wasn't doing it for me so I stumbled out of our car and very classily got down on my knees in my pretty dress and heels and puked behind a tree. I felt better for a few minutes so I went down and joined our friends again. But then I started to not feel so great again and MOTH offered to take me in to town to try and find some medicine so I wouldn't be sick all night. We made it in to town just as the last grocery store was closing. I explained to them how I had just been sick and could I please run in for some quick medicine. They don't have much variety in grocery stores here like they do in the U.S. but we grabbed whatever we thought might help me. I took some Alka Seltzer that was supposed to be for headaches and upset stomachs. About that time, our friends arrived in town to go to the pub to wait for the reception to start. MOTH got me a gingerale and I sat outside with the girls trying to get some air. I felt bad for MOTH having to keep missing out on the fun so he went inside to play pool with the other boys. Twice I ran out to in front of the pub to try and catch a bit of breeze to make me nausea go away. Finally, (TMI coming up so beware if you're squeamish) I couldn't hold it any longer and I did 3 big heaves in to a planter outside of the pub. I'm sure I just looked like a hot mess and a bad drunk to anyone who saw, but I couldn't help it, nor could I face puking in the pub's bathroom. MOTH came out just as I finished and I started crying. I felt so awful and just wanted to go back to the cabin to lie down. He convinced me to wash my face and grab some fries aka chips to eat and that seemed to do the trick.

It was then time for the reception. It was a fun night with everyone else doing lots of drinking (I was driving, plus nothing sounded worse than drinking on top of having already been sick) and dancing and taking scandalous and funny pictures together.

There was a tiny bit of drama at the end of the night when we went to say good bye to the bride. I told her that I know I'm flakey so it may have seemed that that was what I was doing the weekend before when I missed her bachelorette party, but that I had been sick with other stomach issues. I told her about being sick that night. She didn't seem to believe me and had some issues about our cabins, as well. It was sad to see her upset on her wedding night and upset at me/the other girls(?) specifically because we hadn't actually done anything wrong and it was a shame that people were telling her crappy things about us. I guess you can't be in a group our size without a bit of drama between everyone every once in a while, though. Hopefully she came away believing what we had said, but I'm not sure. I hope to speak to her when she gets back from her honeymoon to reiterate that we didn't say anything negative about her, her bachelorette party, or her choice of accommodation for us-there was just a lot of confusion and third party misinformation.

After the reception, we all headed back to hang out at the cabin and decompress from the night. At the stroke of midnight, we roused the Farmer from his room and sang Happy Birthday to him. The rest of us made it in to bed between 1 and 1:30.

In the morning, we got up waaaaaaay too early (7:30!!) and sat out on the porch again and watched the river. We then made breakfast, packed up, and all headed down to the river where MOTH and the Soccer Player took an unintentional, that turned in to intentional, dip in the river.

I don't think anyone wanted to go and we discussed getting a big house together somewhere at the beach to share sometime soon. We then got in to our separate cars and headed home. Other than being sick and the bit of drama that unfolded, it was a fantastic weekend away!

It hurts, It hurts, It hurts, It hurts

An anonymous commenter was asking me in their comment this morning if my secret is that I am knocked up, at least I think that's what they were asking. I'm not, but in an ironic twist, I did spend my morning with my head in the toilet! If you've ever suffered from a migraine then you know how debilitating they can be. My head was hurting so bad that it made me nauseous and all I could do was walk between laying on my bed and sitting/laying in front of the toilet. Lucky me, what a fun way to spend my last day of being 25! I could understand spending my last day as a 25 year old this way if it was self-inflicted because I decided to have a big night drinking to celebrate my upcoming birthday, but I didn't, and I think it is because I get migraines and have to suffer through the throwing up and the pounding head that I don't drink to excess anymore because why would I want to feel this way any more often than I have to? I'm on the mend now, but I still have a bit of a lingering headache.

I had planned on revealing the secret today, but I didn't get the posting done this morning so instead we can celebrate my birthday on here tomorrow by finding out what I've been hiding. Consider it my birthday gift to all of you!

Wastin' Away Again in Margaritaville

Saturday afternoon Boyfriend and I got ready and headed down to meet Stylez and Turk for a fun night of Mexican and booze, or as we call it: a Mexibooze night, and karaoke. We were running late and so was Stylez so once we got there we started our walk to find a cab into Glebe and to the restaurant- The Flying Fajita Sistas. Once there, we met up with another friend whom Stylez, Turk, and Boyfriend had all worked with waaaaay back in the day and his girlfriend. Stylez and I immediately ordered margaritas and the boys ordered Dos Equis (XX) in honor of my Dad because that is what he always gets when he has Mexican food. The drinks came and they were fantastic. I feel like I probably gulped mine down but it was the best margarita I have had in a long time. We ordered an appetizer for the table and I really liked the cheese dip (top right yellow), smokey salsa (top left red), and the bean dip (bottom right white and brown) which was just like beans you'd get as a side dish at a CA Mexican place. Of course the lighting was awful in both places we went so I've had to borrow other people's pictures

that I found online.

After that we ordered our dinners and Boyfriend and I shared a fajita platter for two. He chose snapper and I chose shrimp for my meat. We also decided to order a litre of white sangria for the table. The snapper and the shrimp were so delicious, like "WHOA" they were so good! The tortillas were just "Meh" that came with it, Guzmen y Gomez has better ones, and I wasn't a fan of the black beans or rice that came as part of the meal. I really wished they would have served more of the "bean dip" instead. The waitresses were really, really dumb and would come to ask if we needed water or anything and then when we asked for more booze were told someone else would have to come and get our drinks (this wasn't a bus person or a person under 18 so I dunno why she couldn't have) and they didn't know basic stuff like they threw in a bunch of tortillas in to two warmers instead of 4 for the 4 of us who got fajitas but didn't tell us that and handed them to the people with two single orders rather than one for me and Boyfriend and one for them to split and then couldn't tell us how many tortillas we were each supposed to get with our meal when we were then trying to divy the tortillas out. I thought the sangria was just "Meh", as well. I had wanted to try sangria and now I have, but I wish I would've gotten another margarita instead. If you go on a warm night, I'd suggest asking to sit out back; they've got the cutest little patio area to sit out in. Tuesday is Taco Tuesday and they do $3 tacos and I'm pretty sure $3 shots of tequila. All in all I can't wait to go back for margaritas, the snapper, the shrimp, and the bean dip. Check them out at http://www.flyingfajitasistas.com.au/ or they are located at 66 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe.

After dinner, we hopped in to another cab that took us in to the heart of the city to the karaoke place- Echo Point. It's run by Japanese people and has lots of Japanese snacks and drinks to buy from the front desk. It isn't like normal karaoke because you order private rooms to sing in, rather than do it in a room full of strangers. We had about 10 people hanging out in ours. There is just a tv, a karaoke machine, coffee table, a black light, and some comfy seats built into the walls in the room and you punch in the songs you want to do and go for it. I had fun watching everyone sing. I did not take a turn on the mic. Some of the girls sang love songs, the boys sang a bunch of random stuff from Prince to Metallica to the Prodigy, and Stylez, Turk and Boyfriend normally sang as a threesome and chose cool punk/alternative songs like GreenDay, Weezer, and Blink. I even got Boyfriend and Stylez to sing me a duet of "I'm the One Who Wants to Be with You" by Mr. Big! It was $16-$17 for each of us for a 3 hour session, I think. It's a fun way to spend a night every once in awhile. If you are a karaoke fanatic then you should take a group of friends to Echo Point. They've got all their songs listed on their website (I think they've got over 1,000 to choose from) (http://www.echopoint.com.au/), too, so you can have your set list picked out for the night before you arrive like Boyfriend's one friend did!

I don't normally keep track of Boyfriend's drinking because I'm not his parole officer (before you ask, no, he doesn't really have a parole officer) and I figure he can handle himself and he knows his limit, but I maybe should've been a little vigilant on Saturday night because he was drinking sake, which he's only had a couple of times before and always during a meal. He ended up getting drunker than I realized on that and beer and when we headed back to Turk and Stylez's place and went to bed, he immediately had to get up and be sick. All in all he was probably up about 6 times puking through out the night, but at least he was really neat about it and didn't get it all over their super cute house!

In the morning he was still feeling crappy, but felt a little better because Turk and Stylez hadn't heard him being sick or been kept up by it like I thought they might have because it seemed to echo all across the downstairs of their house, where their spare bathroom and guest bedroom is. We decided to go to a local place for breakfast and they thought maybe it was best to just bring us breakfast back or to at least drive over, but I thought the walk in the fresh air might do Boyfriend some good. Right before we left, he had to make a quick dash to the bathroom to be sick again and then he said he felt lots better. The walk through their neighborhood was really nice. No one was out, it was a quiet Sunday morning and the view if you turned and looked was of the Sydney skyline, CentrePoint Tower, and the tops of the Harbour Bridge. We sat inside because all the outside seats were taken and Boyfriend made it through breakfast feeling just ok. We walked back to Turk and Stylez's place, chatted a bit longer, then hit the road.

Boyfriend's Dad's birthday is this week, so is Nae's, and Bob just moved in to his new place so we figured while we were close, we might as well hit up Ikea...the only one in NSW, I think. I was in heaven once we got inside! Boyfriend seemed to pick up a bit, too, and we had fun looking at all the neatly designed furniture and bedding and stuff they had. Boyfriend especially liked all the kitchen designs they had displayed. We came away with some office and home stuff for Boyfriend, a funny little present for Nae, lots of new kitchen stuff for Bob, struck out on stuff for his Dad, and got me a vase for $4 and a couch cover that I had wanted when I bought my couch 3 years ago since the couch is white and was the cheapest one they had, but didn't think I could afford it then (in the last year my couch has suddenly looked thrashed so it was awesome that we could buy a black cover for it that would better hide stains). We also had to have a look at all the good Swedish food they had at the food shop past the registers and bought some yummy cookies, blueberry concentrate drink, a non-alcoholic pear cider, a Daime chocolate bar that Stylez recommended, and some salted black licorice (yuck!) that Turk recommended, as well as the meatballs, at the last minute, because everyone else in line had at least one bag of them and Turk had said they were delicious, too.

We got back on the road and Boyfriend was not feeling so great. He asked if he got us out of the City could I manage the drive on the freeway home? I have never driven more than about 10 miles maybe and never on the freeway so I was a bit nervous, but said if he just rested and didn't fall asleep on me, I'd do it. Once I got going, it was as easy as driving on the regular side of the road, and soon, I was passing slow pokes. The drive took about an hour and we got home just as it was getting dark. We basically had time to unload the car, go to the bathroom, and then we were back on the road to Nan and Pop's for Sunday dinner...this week a bbq for Boyfriend's Dad's birthday. Lots of the cousins were there and they brought their babies with them and it was good to catch up with the girls and have a cuddle and a play with the babies. The one little girl is about 1 and a half years old and is so smart- she remembered my name after the first time I played with her and still remembers me months later and always calls out "Little D, Little D" to get my attention and get me to come play with her. For some reason she was afraid of Boyfriend last night and would run away or hide her face in my shoulder anytime he came near! Don't they say that kids and dogs can sense when someone is evil? Haha, just kidding Babe!

It turned out to be one of those weekends that are so jam packed you don't feel as if you've had a real weekend, but I love those and had a great time! Today I put my tutoring ad in two of the local papers and one will run on Wednesday and Friday in the one paper and the other will be delivered in to people's mailboxes in the area later in the month. I'm so excited and can't wait to see how many calls I get! Fingers crossed for me guys because I really could use the income.

Oh yeah, and check out Stylez's stuff at reJENerate (link up the top) she's got a blog, a website, and stuff on Etsy. I saw some of her bags lying around at her house and their are some cute ones right now. She also has been doing custom bridal and bridal party clutches that are cool and fun and match without being too matchy, if you know what I mean. She will have an order from me if I ever take a stroll down the aisle!

I am the Eggman, They are the Eggmen, I am the Walrus

This Friday all 12 of us in the group got together, plus Baby Lo, for LC and Bob Marley's first night out again with the group. We went out to dinner and then headed back to Croc and the Teacher's place to hang out. Croc and the Soccer Player had been out shooting the weekend before. They hunt feral animals like foxes, pigs, and goats, as well as kangaroos who are breeding out of control. This trip they shot mostly pigs and saw lots of emus sitting on nests. The boys were told once an emu is disturbed off its nest, they don't tend to come back to it so Croc took an egg from one of the nests that they had accidentally scared an emu off of. I asked to see it and that's it in the picture. Upclose it is really dark blue with light blue flecks. I gagged the first time I shook the egg because you could hear the little emu's head clunking against the side of the shell. Croc wants to get an incubator and raise a few emus out on his mom and dad's property eventually.

Boyfriend and I had planned to go ice skating over the weekend because we have been having some pretty dull ones lately with Boyfriend having to work and us being broke. When we got up, we had a message from Croc saying come over to his place and hang out with him and the Teacher and all of the Teacher's Sydney friends for the night. We felt like maybe we were getting a pity invite since Croc thought we had "Fuck all" to do for the night, but they assured us that it wasn't and to come on over. So we grocery shopped and decided to put ice skating off til the next day.

We arrived at Croc and the Teacher's to find a campfire in the backyard (they live in a townhouse and have a tiny backyard, too!) which had a lamb and then beef roasted in a camp oven on it. There was also a rotisserie spit and it had a chicken and a piglet that Croc and the Soccer Player had shot the weekend before on it. There were also yabbies that had been steamed. Yabbies look like tiny little lobsters and are the same as crayfish or related to them. I had a bite of one of the claws and it tasted like crab to me, while Boyfriend had a bite of the tail and said that bit tasted like shrimp. The Teacher's friends were all nice and easy to talk soon so the night was moving along fairly quickly. Croc asked Boyfriend if we'd like to stay the night so they could get drunk together and I said I didn't mind. I wasn't really drinking, I had less than 2 glasses of wine the whole night. At 1opm exactly, Croc and the Teacher's next door neighbor came over and asked us to keep it down. You could barely hear the music we were playing inside and we had only had the didgeridoo outside for about 5 minutes when they came over. It was a rager my no means and it was 10pm on a Saturday night! I couldn't believe how uptight the neighbors were. After the Teacher's friends left, we sat out by the campfire for another hour or so then headed off to bed.

I went to bed with a headache and my stomach was not feeling right. I laid in bed for forever wondering if I was going to be sick or not, and if I was-why, but finally drifted off for a little bit. Then I woke back up feeling really gross and tried to breathe it out and I finally jumped out of bed and said to Boyfriend that I was going to be sick. So I ran down the stairs in my socks and a peacoat and only just made it to the bathroom where I puked up a whole lot. Boyfriend hates throw up (who doesn't?) and started gagging as soon as he came in to the bathroom...haha, makes me laugh to think about it. But we got it cleaned up and went back to bed. When we got up in the morning I apologized to Croc and the Teacher in case I had woken them up but they didn't hear me at all so that was good. We went home, took showers, then went back to bed. Boyfriend asked if I wanted to go ice skating, but I wasn't up for it. He then asked if I wanted to go see a movie, but nothing was playing at the right time and movies are $16.50 a piece here now so I said let's just rent a movie. He went out to run errands and I laid around. I felt like the room was spinning and decided to go back to sleep for awhile. And that was pretty much our weekend, other than being sick (and I still don't really know why I got sick like that), it was a pretty good one. I'm not sure we'll make it to the movies or ice skating next week either because I've heard rumors that we are meeting Turk and Styles for dinner at a Mexican food restaurant, the Flying Fajita Sisters, in Sydney and then maybe heading out to a karaoke bar with them and another friend. I will not be putting my SingStar skills to use, I promise!

For the Workforce, Drowning

While I was out dealing with cops and kids, everyone else in my course had already done that round of practice teaching, so they only had about an hour of school for 2 of the 4 weeks then the rest of the time was spent getting ready for our Departmental interviews and doing projects that needed to get done before Internship. I had to do all these things and teach at the same time. I was frantic. Everyone told me my Internship school would be a walk in the park compared to my last school and I lucked out by getting the nicest class in the school. My teacher was alright, he didn’t give me as nice of a report as I think I deserved, but that’s because he didn’t really watch me teach. It was good cause the class became mine and I really learned a lot, but bad cause then he only had the first few lessons of mine that he had critiqued to go off of when writing my final report. I really enjoyed the kids and the work and was ready for a class of my own. The staff at the school were all really great and would do anything to help any of us interns out. After our last day, they took us out to a bar. I wasn’t going to drink, but one of the young teachers (who’s husband happened to be my supervisor at the tough school) was like, “Meh, get drunk, I usually do” so I did and I was embarrassingly drunk and became emotional when I got home that night (and thankfully not at the bar!) and called S. I was just upset about my final report, especially after someone at the bar had told me that not everyone agreed with the final report either and didn’t think it reflected the effort or work I had done. So I was totally embarrassed when I saw S the next day. On top of that, I was a classy bitch and threw up on the train on the way down to his place. Luckily, I must have been psychic that day as I just happened to have thrown a barf bag and a juice box in my purse that morning!
Over the next few weeks, I got my Teacher Research Project done and had to present a portfolio to a professor and a peer justifying to them how I had achieved all of the teaching standards for NSW.
When that was all said and done, I threw myself a Mexican/Halloween/Graduation party at S’s house. It was a good night, I got most everyone super drunk ( I was still over drinking after throwing up on the train) and we had good food and a piñata and most people dressed up as a Mexican or at least Australia’s version of a Mexican or in some type of Halloween outfit. S was a cholo and I was a chola. I found a video on Youtube that was about applying makeup like a chola (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CR0PykHTYY) so I tried to follow it but I have no skills and it ended up looking pretty funny. I got a sharpie and drew “Thug Life” acrossed S’s knuckles, a heart that said Madre on it, and another tattoo on his arm or chest that said Brown Pride. He also had been growing a beard/mo combo for awhile and he shaved off the beard and came out looking sooooo dirty with just the mo!
I a) couldn’t afford to keep my room while I went back home and b) had decided I wanted to live on the Coast closer to S and c)wanted to try living on my own again so I moved out of Benny Boy’s apartment in November and made my way home to California.